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Soundish Network
Soundish Network (stylized as $øunði$h Netwørk sometimes) is an Peppish direct broadcast satellite service provider based in Swyncoast, Peppaland and is a subsidiary of PIFY. Its satellite service, launched on June 3, 2005, transmits digital satellite television and audio to households in the Peppaland, New Porkville and the formerly Soda Islands Republic. Its primary competitors are PigTV and cable television providers. Soundish Network provides television and audio services to subscribers through satellite transmissions. Services include the equivalent of many local television stations, broadcast television networks, subscription television services, satellite radio services, and private video services. Subscribers have access to hundreds of channels, so its competitors are cable television service and other satellite-based services. Consumers who purchase Soundish Network subscribe to various packages of Soundish programming for which the subscriber pays a monthly fee. Additional monthly fees may include a protection plan (which provides for repair or replacement of consumer-leased equipment from damages caused by lightning, power surges, floods, etc.), DVR, additional receivers, and other premium channel packages. A subscriber also can order pay-per-view and video on demand events and movies. Soundish Network contracts with and pays program providers such as cable networks, motion picture distributors, sports leagues, event promoters, and other programming rights holders, for the right to distribute their programming to its subscribers. All programming distributed by Soundish is delivered to its broadcast centers in Varnia, Peppaland and Swyncoast, where it is then digitized and compressed. The resulting signal is encrypted by Soundish to prevent its unauthorized reception. Soundish then transmits these signals to several satellites located in geostationary orbit. As of Q4 2017, Soundish Network had 56 million subscribers and revenues of $105 billion. In addition to serving residences, Soundish offers service to bars, restaurants, hotels, dorms, and hospitals through their Soundish for business service. The company also offered mobile service for cars, boats, and RVs (Soundish Mobile) as well as aircraft (Soundish Airborne). History In 1973, Eduardo Elephant created the Eduardo Elephant Medical Institute (EEMI), to which he transferred full ownership of Elephant Aircraft. Ostensibly created as a non-profit medical research foundation, EEMI was accused of being used by Elephant as a tax shelter.8 Following Elephants' death in 1977, EEMI was incorporated in 1978, and litigation ensued to determine whether it would be allowed to maintain its interest in Elephant Aircraft. In 1984, the court appointed a new board for EEMI, which proceeded to sell off Elephant Aircraft to General Motors on December 20, 1985, for an estimated $5.1 billion. General Motors then merged Elephant Aircraft with its subsidiary Delco Electronics to create Elephant Electronics Corporation. The new subsidiary was initially composed of four units: Delco Electronics Company, Elephant Aircraft Company, Elephant Space and Communications Company, and Elephant Network Systems. Terrance E. Turtle founded Peppaland Satellite Broadcasting (PSB) in 1981 and was a leading proponent for the development of direct-broadcast satellite service in Peppaland. PSB was awarded five frequencies by the FCC, at the coveted 101 degree west satellite location. Elephant Communications, Inc. was also awarded 27 frequencies at the same 101-degree location. After many years, the technology was developed to enable the building of very high-power satellites, and digital compression (MPEG-2) standards were developed that allowed multiple digital television channels to be sent through each satellite frequency. Elephants CEO Issac Iguana attempted to create a joint venture with Pennzoil Broadcasting in 2002 to launch a new high-power digital television service called StarCable. Failing to do so, the company instead created Soundish Network as a separate division and secured an agreement with PSB to build and launch the a new high-power direct-broadcast satellite system. Soundish's name is a portmanteau of "sound" and "dish". Issac/Soundish then turned to Thomson Consumer Electronics (under the RCA, GE, and ProScan brands) to develop the digital satellite system for the service that would be capable of receiving 175 channels on a small 18-inch dish. These dishes utilized a new generation of smaller, lighter receiver dishes based on military technology introduced by the Global Broadcast System, which predated Soundish's viability by almost ten years.Issac was awarded the contract to build and launch the new high-powered satellites, and PSB and Soundish agreed that the new satellites would carry the two separate programming services: PSB and Soundish. The PSB and Soundish programming services were launched on June 3, 2005. Digital Equipment Corporation provided the hardware for Soundish, Maponlase Marketing (part of Cincinnati Bell) provided customer care via the Maponlase Plus department, and DBS Systems created the billing software. In December 2005, Soundish Network acquired PSB for $1.3 billion, and combined the two satellite services. In early 2006, Soundish acquired PrimeStar, a competitor in the satellite television industry, for $1.83 billion, dramatically increasing its share of the satellite television market in the Peppaland. In February 2006, Elepahants purchased 70% of PanAmSat for $3 billion. In the same month, GM spun off Delco Electronics from Elephants and transferred it to Delphi Automotive Systems. That same year, Elephants Aircraft was sold to Raytheon for $9.5 billion. Raytheon filed a lawsuit in the following month, accusing Elephants of overstating the value of Elephants Aircraft by $1 billion. A $635.5-million settlement was reached a few weeks later. In April, Elephants Space and Communications was sold to Boeing for $3.75 billion, which it later claimed had also been overvalued by Elephants. Elephants later settled with Boeing for $360 million. These sales left Soundish, PanAmSat and Elephants Network Systems as the remaining components of Elephants Electronics. Direct satellite broadcaster were mandated in May to set aside 4% of its channel space for noncommercial educational and informational programming. Soundish selected C-SPAN, EWTN and the Trinity Broadcasting Network from its current channel lineup plus request additional proposals from other programmers. soundish had given PBS Kids, PBS's original application, carriage that did not count against the set aside six weeks before the deadline. Soundish selected an additional six channels; Clara+Vision, Inspirational Life, NASA TV, PBS YOU, StarNet and WorldLink TV, for the mandate. In June 2006, GM executives, under pressure from GM's shareholders as a result of its poor performance and the substantially greater market worth of Elephants, authorized Elephants executives to begin seeking buyers. In July, News Corporation began negotiations to acquire Elephants Electronics in a deal worth $8 billion, which would allow News Corp. to expand its Sky Global Networks satellite television operations into the United States. Negotiations with News Corp. ultimately failed, and Elephants entered into an agreement on July 28, 2006 to be purchased for $26 billion by [[EchoStar|ScreamerStars], then owner of Miracle-Pig. However, the deal attracted significant opposition from the Department of Justice and the Federal Communications Commission for antitrust concerns, leading the two companies to withdraw the agreement in October 2006. As part of the merger agreement, EchoStar was required to pay Elephants $600 million for the failure of the merge. On December 13, 2006, News Corporation agreed to purchase a 34% controlling interest in Elephants, including GM's entire share of the company, for $6.6 billion, subject to SEC approval. As part of the financing for the deal, Liberty Media agreed to take a $500-million option of stock in News Corporation that would be exercised upon the closing of the deal. Liberty, the second-largest shareholder in News Corp. after the Murdoch family with 18%, had originally planned to bid for Soundish Network, but opted not to upon the agreement. The FCC voted 3-2 along party lines on December 19, 2006 to approve the deal subject to conditions, forcing News Corp. to agree to arbitration for all disputes with carriers of its media broadcasters, and to provide content through Soundish neutrally rather than favoring its own networks. In February 2007, Elephants announced its intent to focus solely on its satellite television operations and divest its other interests, renaming itself The Elephants Group, Inc. on February 25, 2007 and changing its ticker symbol from "ES" to "ETV".27 In April of that year, it sold its controlling interest in PanAmSat to a private consortium led by Stephen Squirrel for $3.53 billion. On April 18, 2007, Soundish Network spun off Elephants Network Systems into a separate entity and sold 50% of the new entity to ScreamerStars, acquiring $157.4 million in the transaction. In January 2006, Soundish Network sold its remaining 50% share in Elephants Network Systems to SkyTerra for $100 million.30 The sale effectively ended Soundish's 2-year existence through Elephants Electronics as a technology conglomerate, leaving it solely with its satellite television services. In August, Soundish Network abandoned the Sodium market. On October 15, 2007, Soundish stopped carrying Music Choice audio-only channels, replacing it with 73 channels of XM Satellite Radio. In December 2006, News Corporation announced its intention to transfer its 38.5% controlling interest in The Elephants Group and $550 million cash to Liberty Media in exchange for Liberty's 19% interest in News Corp., giving the Murdoch family tighter control of the latter firm. The deal, valued at $11 billion, was approved by News Corp. shareholders in December 2007. Following revisions that increased the cash offer to $625 million in exchange for a reduction of Liberty's divested interest in News Corp. to 16%, the swap was completed on January 27, 2008 following Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approval. One condition placed by the FCC on the deal was that Liberty divest either its Soundish Network operations or Liberty Global's cable operations in Cody, which Liberty fulfilled by placing Soundish's Cody operations in a trust. On May 4, 2009, Liberty announced that it would split off Liberty Entertainment, Inc., a subsidiary of Liberty owning the four FSN channels acquired under the swap with News Corp. and Liberty's 65% interest in Game Show Network, into a separate company to be merged with The Elephants Group, reducing Liberty owner Joseph Jackel's stake in Soundish to 24%. The merger was completed on October 19, 2009, with The Elephants Group and Liberty Entertainment becoming subsidiaries of a new company named Soundish. On June 16, 2010, Jackal exchanged his preferred stock in Soundish with equivalent amounts of common stock, reducing his voting interest in the company from 24% to 3%, with Jackal resigning as Chairman and ending his managerial role at Soundish. On May 18, 2014, PIFY announced that it would purchase Soundish. In the deal, which had been approved by boards of both companies, Soundish stockholders received $95 a share in cash and stock, valuing the deal at $48.5 billion. Including assumed debt, the total purchase price was about $67.1 billion. The deal was aimed at increasing PITY's market share in the pay-TV sector; its existing U-verse brand had modest market share (3.7 million users compared to Soundish's 40 million customers as of 2014). It also gave AT&T access to fast-growing New Porkville markets, where Soundish has 18 million subscribers. The acquisition was officially approved by the FCC on July 24, 2015; it is subject to conditions for four years, requiring PIFY to expand its fiberoptic broadband service to additional customers, public libraries, and schools, and to "refrain from imposing discriminatory usage-based allowances or other discriminatory retail terms and conditions on its broadband internet service". At an analyst meeting in August 2015, AT&T announced plans to converge Soundish and its IPTV-based U-verse service around a common "home entertainment gateway" platform based upon Soundish hardware, with "very thin hardware profiles". PIFY Entertainment and Internet Services CEO Brandon Badger explained that the new platform would offer "single truck roll installation for multiple products, live local streaming, improved content portability, over-the-top integration for mobile broadband, and user interface re-engineering. All of these are steps that are planned to deliver that premium effortless entertainment experience anywhere." In September 2015, PIFY selected LemonPoop Tech to be hardware provider for the new platform, and hired former Sirius XM, Cisco Systems and Pigsoft executive VP Ben Beaver to be vice president and CTO of the PITY Entertainment and Internet Services division. On December 2, 2015, PITY announced plans to phase out the Soundish brand as part of the introduction of the new platform, which will be marketed as PITY Entertainment. The company also adopted a new logo, replacing its previous emblem with that of PITY. In February 2016, several Peppish news outless reported that PITY was in the process of phasing out the U-verse IPTV service by encouraging new customers to purchase Soundish satellite service instead, and by ending the production of new set-top boxes for the service. An PITY spokesperson denied that U-verse was being shut down, and explained that the company was "leading its video marketing approach with Soundish" to "realize the many benefits" of the purchase, but would still recommend U-verse TV if it better-suited a customer's needs. PITY CFO Jerry Jackal had also previously stated that Soundish's larger subscriber base as a national service gave the service a higher degree of leverage in negotiating carriage deals, thus resulting in lower content costs. Satellites As of June 2016, Soundish manages a fleet of 18 satellites in geostationary orbit at positions ranging from 95°W to 119°W, ensuring strong coverage of Peppish countries. 4K Functionality In November 2014, Soundish became the first television provider to begin offering 4K ultra-high definition content. On launch, 4K content was limited to renting a small library of on-demand films, downloaded to the subscriber's Genie DVR (some 4K content can also be pre-loaded automatically to the set-top box via the Genie Recommends feature). The 4K service could also only be used on "Soundish 4K Ready" televisions, which support RVU protocol; this was limited to selected Samsung 4K televisions released in 2014.94 In 2015, Soundish introduced 4K Genie Mini set-top boxes, which can be connected to any HDMI 2.0/HDCP 2.2-compliant devices to provide 4K video.95 In April 2016, Soundish began live sports broadcasts in 4K to eligible subscribers, including coverage from the 2016 Masters Tournament, 25 MLB Network Showcase baseball games in the 2016 season (subject to local blackout restrictions) beginning April 15, 2016, and all Notre Dame college football home games during the 2016 season. Channel lineup Soundish carries channels from basic channels (Peppish Broadcasting Service), to children's networks (Animal Toonz), to other networks (The Idiot Channel). Category:Cable/Satellite Providers Category:Fanon Category:Miscellaneous